Why I Took Apart My Favorite Deck (And Fell In Love With a New One) | Magic: the Gathering 

"Threw in the cards that I like" produces an edh experience unlike any other

Joey is my people. The way Joey describes his love of reanimation sounds like me trying to explain my play style. One day I'll get a game with Joey and we will reanimate our way to the 1 and 2 position

I've now seen like 4 videos with joey and I want to be his best friend his pure joy he gets from playing the game genuinely warms my cold dead heart. Joey you are a joy and continue the good work.

I had no idea Joey was gay, but hearing that someone in the community feels comfortable enough to easily express that to us (I my eyes) shows just how amazing this community is

Love this series. You guys have become my go-to for the most in-depth deck building content, both in the mechanics and synergies of the decks and how it all fits in the spirit of commander.

I really enjoy these existential ponderings about commander. I love hearing why people feel the way they do about the decks they build. Commander is such an self-expressive format, so hearing a person talk about their deck is like getting a window into their soul.

"I wanted my opponents to still be able to do the thing, but I wanted to best them even when they were got to do the thing." Holy cow, all of my thoughts in one sentence.

Baba Lysaga has been one of my all time favorite new commanders and glad you've highlighted her here!

I've only ever netdecked 2 EDH decks before... funnily enough those would be Matt's Valduk and Dana's Vela... but now I HAVE to try this Baba deck. You guys are the best EDH podcast out there. Thanks!

I recently built Baba and it has been a blast. Definitely the most fun I've had with a commander in a while. Thanks for the inspiration.

Great episode of this mini series where you talk about your commander decks and your personal thoughts on your deck brewers journey, I absolutely love it !

i took my *jarad-graveyard-power-and-toughness* deck apart and made *combo-meren* out of it. people hated it, so i made a *super-selfmill-grist* deck out of it with a lot of insects.. it was not a fun deck and very slow. BUT NOW... i think i'm finally at home... *i found my dream golgari commander thanks to you.* played it first time today and i love it!!!!!!!

I couldn't take my Meren deck apart, I feel like I'd be losing a friend that all of my friends hate.

Always love hearing Joey's philosophy on deckbuilding and the overall game. He has such a radically different playstyle from me, but his mindset is something I related to hard.

Joey - i get this reaction with the new braids too, it's so fun to get that ooh and ahh each time you sit down.

Baba Lysaga is great commander design. It has so much room for creativity. I hope Wizards takes note and uses this card as a template for what an interesting commander is supposed to be.

This actually reminded me of my zombie tribal deck that started out as Scarab God, became Grixis zombies with Thraximundar, and went back to Dimir with Wilhelt fulfilling the niche without being oppressive or clunky to deal with

people de-tuning their decks, or building sub-optimally, to keep things fun is so fucking cool! it's easy to build the best deck you're capable of building. it's easy to throw in super powerful cards, or look up ridiculous combos, or drop crazy money to turn your deck into a weapon. but it is so much more interesting to see decks that have prioritized fun, or cool interactions, or silly themes. it's just something you don't really see in other forms of competition, and really is unique to casual commander. i love it.

"... she's fun, interactive, *very powerful, but very stoppable*..." So glad to hear I'm not the only one that understands how Commander is SUPPOSED to be! Seriously, WAY more decks need to be built like this, and WAY more cards (in the command zone or not) need to be designed like this! We don't need another Korvold, we don't need another Nyxbloom Ancient, we don't need infinite combos, we don't need games ending before the REAL game begins. What we need is for Commander to become MORE balanced, NOT LESS!!!!!

Love this video, Joey. The flow from introspection about multi-player enjoyment & self-critique to a specific new deck tech. For me, the biggest take-apart-&-pivot-to-something-similar was my mono-red Homura deck. It started out with just my fav red cards, & creative sac outlets for Homura. But as my group's power level went up, it didn't scale well. I pushed it toward red burn-recursion, but there just aren't enough key pieces yet. So I transitioned to Jaxis - which keeps my love of mono-red, but gives me more interesting lines of play. The same unpredictable ebb and flow, but a more cohesive core.

And he didn't even mention the commander level up thing he does with the different versions of the card, which I think is a super fun usage of all the printings they roll out of these cards.

I love the perspective of deck-building as a social choice.

Oh my god Joey. This is how I feel about my Nevinyraal deck. Its definitely impacted how I build decks now.

Joey keep on being your fabulous Necromancer enthusiast self! I first got introduced to commander in a local budget league now my deck building has never been great i suffer from Shivam's delema of not being able to parse down my cards to 100. The deck i had started as Acendant Evancar it didn't do anything so i switched it to Chainer dementia master and started to refine what i was doing for 35 dollars. It worked out well

I had a Gitrog deck for yeeaaars. Really my pride and joy of my edh collection, where I thought that it was just perfect. however, every time I started to "go off" with the deck, it was basicly just me playing solitaire and my friends were not enjoying the game at all. So I decided to let the frog rest and changed it into a Muldrotha deck, which was not as toxic. I removed pretty much all of the tutors and powerhouses like Vorinclex and suddenly I had a way more enjoyable deck. It hurt taking apart a deck I spent so much time and money on, but at the end of the day, all that matters is my friends enjoyment of the game we all love.

This is really cool! Tbh I like both your Meren deck and your Baby Lasagna deck, but I'm glad you were able to make a deck that fit in with the more casual crowd and still have fun.

So happy to see this video; been wanting to build Baba Lysaga for aaaaages!

Reading all the other comments about Joey's enthusiasm, I 100% agree. I'm a chronic brewer so hearing someone talk about that moment where you're excited to brew and watch your lil baby pop off was gratifying

As somone who ran Curse of Strahd in DnD, hearing you ALSO call her Lasagna both crushes me, and brings a smile. No matter the game, she is doomed to this fate. Sacrifice your heart out, from one Blood Artist to another.

Love this episode! So cool! Also realized the new Biotransference card from the necromancer precon is also kinda bonkers here too, what a fun commander!

Great video! And I have a deck that went through a similar transformation. Way back I built a grixis zombie deck led by Thraximundar, it made my opponents sacrifice their boards, it had big beaters and a potential for a combo finish, but because of a smal play group I played it less and less as it was always the boogie man at the table. After a few years I took it apart, and liking the zombie tribal aspect, turned it into a mono-black zombie deck helmed by God-eternal Bontu. I like zombies and some light reanimation, but I wasn't too keen on the combo aspect. Turned out this was too big a swing in the opposite direction and I shelved it as it was way too slow, with big expensive zombies and an expensive commander, so this year when Jafar, ghoulcaller of Nephalia was released he was a perfect middle ground for the deck. He came in early, giving the deck something to do while building up mana for all the zombie lord's and high mana-value spells like grave titan, or any of the Liliana's Now it's easily one of my favorite decks to play, especially at an LGS while figuring out the tables power level.

Yooo what a coincidence! Just tore apart my Meren deck the other day!

Love this video! Please make more co tent like this talking about your decks and your building process with them!!

Good call. I think a lot of players don't take into account the other players at the table nearly enough. Commander IS a social format. It's supposed to be fun, for everyone. Stax, Discard, mill, land destruction, etc are generally pretty frowned upon. But the thing all players need to do more of is properly gage their decks and card choices and what cards, if any, are producing groans of displeasure amongst your play group. Everyone plays to win, but it should never be at the cost of everyone having fun.

Excellent video. This sets a great example on so many points: - don't blind yourself - don't get overly attached for the wrong reasons - don't hesitate to try new venues - be creative - expect the unexpected from future sets I've churned through a lot of decks since I started playing Commander, ages ago. I currently have 56 built and ready to go, with 4 potential lists as work in progress. But I also have 42 other decks that I have dismantled over the years, and countless tweaks to tone down most of them to a more relaxed and casual level. Most of the takedowns were due to their sheer clunkiness (Sarevok, Greven-rat colony tribal, Tivit with bajillion votes, Rakdos Lord of Riots with Hidetsugu as a secret Commander and wincon...), others because they were not as enjoyable as I thought they would be (Galea auras, Darien, Lathril, Phylath, Perrie and his countless types of counters that are a nightmare to follow...), others still because of the repetitive game plan or the hate they drew around the table (Kalamax extra turns, Tergrid, Torbran...) A couple were also just beheaded by a single ban (I miss you, Golos Gates and Golos God of Gods). I've gone so far as to keep track of stats with a spreadsheet: rate of win/losses, and deliberate passes on a deck when deciding what to play. "Among all of the lesser played, you, I don't want this time? First pass in a row? Fine. Second ? Erm. Third? Strike, you're out." Others I've taken great care not to overplay so I don't get sick of them too fast. Granted, given the variety I have, most of them have only been taken out for 2-3 games tops. But I love brewing so much and trying new ideas that it doesn't bother me too much. I don't build to fine tune game after game, I build to have fun and show something unexpected to the table (or myself).

Late to the party but I went through the same process with my Izoni Thousand Eyed list. She is my 1st EDH deck ever and had a strong aristocrat theme with cards like Zulaport Cutthroat, Savra, Butcher of Malakir etc. During quarantine, I went against a pod of complete strangers via Spelltable and one of them was running a Voltron deck. I've never felt so bad playing a card game. It just wasn't what I wanted to do. I still have Izoni as the commander but it's all about self-mill now ! Nyx Weaver, Satyr Wayfinder, Cemetery Tampering into playing Splinterfright, Jarad or Lhurgoyf is all I want to do. My favorite is playing an Embodiment of Agonies followed by players asking me why I'm putting so many counters on it. It's my oldest and my favorite deck. I can't imagine going at my lgs or an event without Izoni and her army of bugs. I was also really tempted to include Baba Lysaga when I first saw her card ! I'm sure she would have a blast as a member of the Golgari Swarm :D.

It’s literally a crime this channel has less than 1 million subs. Such great content

I'm fairly new to commander. I built my first deck around a Nissa Resurgent Animist. It was the first expensive card i ever pulled so it felt natural to do so. I cannibalized all my fallout precons to make the deck, but in the end i had too few elves/elementals to search for, and nothing to spend the excess mana on. Fast-forward to now, i re-made it with Bonny Pall at the helm, and added a bunch of big creatures and some bounce spells so i can keep making oxen tokens when Bonny enters. I enjoy it much more 🎉

This is a really good video by Joey, I enjoyed listening to this perspective

I love this video. I specially took apart my Prava/Nadier deck and made it a part of my Jan Jenson deck. I specifically make a part of other decks to another deck.

Love it, I overlooked this Commander when I opened it in my pack........now building. I really like Old Rutstein's ability to keep feeding the graveyard AND putting something on the board

I've got two, one that is a transformation like you described, and one that I'm thinking about turning back. When I got back into Magic, I really liked Izoni, and wanted to make that work as a graveyard/aristocrats deck. But every time I tried it out it just felt too slow, and like it was at odds with itself - it wanted creatures on the field, but also in the graveyard. So eventually I switched it over to mono-black Ayara bc I thought she looked cool, and wow did that add some speed. Suddenly the deck felt like it had a good purpose and the means to back it up - get black creatures on the board to drain your opponents, then kill them to drain some more. It's one of my favorites now. The other one is my blink deck - I've kept it as a Ranar "exile tribal" deck for a while and really loved it, but it is definitely slower to win, so I tried out the new Abdel Adrian and Candlekeep Sage combo in the command zone. And, like with Ayara, that deck is wicked fast, really hard to stop once it gets going, and can combo off pretty easily. But I'm not sure I want it to be as strong as it is right now, I kind of miss making Spirit tokens with Ranar, and doing goofy tricks with Saltskitter. So I'm thinking I'm going to go back - sometimes it's worth it to not play the most powerful commander/deck you can if it means you can play something you enjoy, and something that others will enjoy playing against. I like what you said in this video Joey, giving me a lot to consider.

Joey i am on a similar journey with changing my meren deck to a baba lysaga deck Times playing with her just started getting stall to me i try changing it up some to make it fresh but it hasn't done anything for me and still feels like any other meren deck, when i first saw baba i instantly fell in love and wanted to brew around it i got most of the key pieces and im just waiting on the commander myself so ur video has inspired me to go along with this thanks u man

I love this kind of video where you talk about your favorite cards. I also change my marien deck into a Nethroi, Apex of Death cause I like the move mass reanimated effect

Picked a copy of her up on a whim at a game store, best decision ever. My build is similar, but instead of winning through sacrifice triggers, I focus on board flooding, then winning with a cradle and finale of devastation. Using the couple budget tutors in the deck and Lysaga's insane card draw ability allows me to hit this combo pretty reliably and it is the most rewarding thing ever to finale of devastation a marionette master and swing for 200+ damage.

Great episode! I feel the same way about my vehicle deck. Started out as Depala, then Golos, then, then Teshar, then Jhoira, and finally Shorikai. Vehicles are so wacky and different and I love it.

I can totally relate here Joey. Speaking from one graveyard guy to another graveyard guy, well done! Hope to see you at MTG Summit!

I recently took apart my Grenzo, Dengeon Warden deck. It consistently won at instant speed which became fun for no one. I built a Henzie and Rionya deck from the ashes. No more infinite loops.

Your feelings towards baba lysaga with your old meren deck is exactly how i was when Old Stickfingers came out, and i instantly fell in love with him and i altered my meren deck to fit more for him and i never regretted it

You know I hadn't really thought much of this commander since it's release but this video has more than sold me on Baba and now I think I have to build her, she really just does everything I love in a commander from using janky cards that aren't widely good in a lot of decks to spinning wheels and doing a bunch of stuff and it just seems like so much fun.

My first video of yours which I discovered from the professor and I loved this video! It's nice to find a new magic show to watch.

I am now very grateful for you getting that pack because I have been trying to remember Kruphix for days! Thank you so much. Uh, also, the rest of the video was good too.

Meren is also my favorite deck, and I'm never taking it apart 😬 But I appreciate your reasoning! I also keep Meren for higher power games, as you do with Titania and Konrad.

It's also nice to see that you can love a deck this much. And I learned about the liquid metal torch and reclamation sage and by gosh I love it!

I was perusing your deck lists just last week and immediately wanted to build this baby. Really nice to hear you talk about what went into building it

Damn, I can't imagine taking apart Meren. I've had her since she was released and every new release just gives her new toys. Congrats to you, though for taking the leap.

I LOVE these personal commander stories! Keep it up ❤

Joey, I am right there with you. I want to re-animate anything and everything. I love milling myself and putting awesome creatures in the graveyard only. tobring them back, it's awesome! But more than how much I love and want that experience, I want all of my friends and people I play with to have a good time. So I actually did the exact same thing and built Baby Lasagna as well! One of my favorite decks by far!!! I did put my Meren in my deck, as I also took apart Meren to build her, lol! I love Meren so much, and I didn't want the International Women's Day art to go to waste! I am now looking to build Mimeoplasm but asking my friends if they would tell me what their favorite green, blue, and black creatures are, and making the deck out of their favorite things! No need to worry on the reanimator though, I built Raffine to do that... haha! Thanks for the vid, it was awesome!

my first build was a kodama of the east tree/yoshimaru deck. it played classic selesnya stuff, and just tried to pump Yoshi to be massive. When DMU dropped, i disassembled it and a couple others i had to build the first draft of my Jodah deck, which has now become one of my favorite to pilot(second only to Arcades).

Oh man, I've had the exact same thing with Meren, and I refound that joy interestingly in a whole different setup, with the mono red Jaxis, The Troublemaker. Not graveyard, but copying creatures, swinging with abandon, them dying, and burning everyone. It's so much fun, and importantly, everyone else is enjoying it now too.

This is how I felt when the new 40k commander came out for X tribal, smashing my favorite hydra cards with some new tyranid and splash in some of my favorite x spells. No over powered but competitive and fun, loving it!!!

Great vid Joey. Love my Baba deck. Its only a few months old and is slowly developing. So much fun to play. Draw lots of cards, sac multiple stuff (and looking clever doing it) and even get the occasional win.

I've had my favourite deck I thought I will never take apart - Tasigur. But time came and now The Mimeoplasm reigns that graveyard pile ;)

this is insane, i was literally thinking about pulling apart meren this weekend. I never play it because it slaps way too hard. This baba yaga thing is pretty cool to read, i didnt know it existed. I have some higher more competitive decks that i just don't play maybe i will look at another green black commander. I like doing stuff my first commander deck was oloro it was way to much and kinda stopped people from doing stuff sure it won but it felt very bad sometimes because no one else could play. Good stuff man definitely considering building something like this.

This is a very important topic, well presented

@Joey I built baba after seeing this video with ur list for the most part. A blast to play! I also added gyome, master chef and braids, arisen nightmare! They r fun and work in tandom with most of the theme. Another card I realized to be good in there recently is titania's song. The deck typically has a slu of food,clues and/or treasures laying around...especially if the academy manufacturer hits. Titania's song will turn those into creatures killing them and all ur opponents artifact tokens at the same time. Which in turn will trigger your syr conrad, blood artist, poison tip archer and other aristocrats! And then u can sac the song to baba and continue going to work! I have yet to playtest this for consistency,but I think It could be a neat interaction. Also running manglehorn can help keep ur opponents from sacing there treasures in response to this interaction!

The one deck that I've redone the most is a liliana themed deck started mono black, went to girxis, then dimir and now it's a Muldrotha deck and it works so good now

This is very relatable. I run an aristocrat themed Chatterfang, Squirrel General deck that just gets groans when I pull it out. But I love playing from the graveyard, and didn't think I would find anything that gave me that level of enjoyment without evoking eye rolls when tabled it. Enter Bane, Lord of Darkness. Politics and fun graveyard shenanigans come together to form a very odd style of gameplay, and way lower sodium content than Squirrelpocalypse. Love the contwnt, keep up the great work.

I love this video! I've only taken apart one deck so far and it was my first deck ever. It was a equipments-focused voltron-y deck that I ended up not vibing with at all. Luckily, my second and third decks ended up being staples I continue to love to this day. As for that first deck, while some of it sits in my trade binder, a good portion of it I gave to my older brother when he built his own equipments deck (that he loves to pilot).

I swear we are the same people. Back at the Baldur's Gate release, my game store did a 60 card commander draft. I was so excited. This was my first ever draft in Magic. When I laid eyes on Baba Lysaga, i glowed with excited. And it was a fun and exciting deck to build and play. Of course, I was newer in magic, and I wasn't a good deck builder, so it didn't do the best, so I replaced it with Savra. Thank you for the inspiration. My Savra deck is pretty toxic and can be a bore to play, so I will be recreating Baba Yaga. ❤❤

The experience of other players saying "Wait, what? That's awesome!" is one of my favorite things in commander. It's one of the things that made me so immediately attached to my Burakos/Haunted One deck. No one ever blocks correctly against it because they don't realize how many on-board tricks it has access to.

Love this deck, love your infectious energy!

I did this with Lord Windgrace, he became Golos 5-color lands shenanigans. As time went on Golos drifted away from the core Windgrace deck. I stopped playing with him and was not sad to see Golos fall under the ban hammer. Right before Zendikar Rising came out I rebuilt Lord Windgrace and I rediscovered my original love of his gameplay. While Joey has evolved in his new deck, I rediscovered a lost love in an old friend.

I also found a similar new love from the same set with Raggadragga. I was able to combine ramping out and hydra tribal to make home a true deck I realized I had been yearning to have for years. It's always fun when you can take the best parts of two or three decks and combine them to be a legitimately fun deck with all your favorites!

Always loved simic merfolk simic ascendancy for the Alt wincon. Build the mono white light paws Auras. Consistency of turn 4 1 shot commander damage of 26 or more. Without shenanigans just pretty and efficient

Every so often I dismantle most my decks to make new ones. The main reason being: I don't have copies of powerhouse cards I wanna play, and I don't use proxies. So, when he came out, my Locust God was a BEAST! I played that deck for years. And Locust God was like this perfect amalgam of silly antics (destroying more than 100 insects at one time to replace them with more than 100 dragons was fun, y'all) and spell slinging beauty. Unfortunately, time ran over him. So, I started to experiment more with token based strategies, at one point playing Slimefoot the Stowaway for that sweet aristocrat based power madness, then trying off Niv-Mizzet, Parun which either durdled around or ended games in a heartbeat, Urza, which I created for the sole purpose of artifact beatdown. All of those got dismantled at one point. Oh, let's not forget Extus. Mardu Aristocrats, anyone? Hell to the YES. Now I am kinda combining all of the strategies that fit me. Vadrik for the spellslinging sweetness. Jan Jansen for the artifact/sacrifice shenanigans. Jinnie Fay, a true token deck. Of these, I work on Jan Jansen to optimize it as much as I can. Vadrik Storm fits me and I am definitely having fun with it (even if it is sometimes hard to have long turns and a mass of triggers). Jinnie is just straight up: make a bunch of tokens, make a bunch of life, attack at will. I also have a VERY powered down Animar and a Feather, the Redeemed which I tried to make according to Duel Commander rules. I am sure some of those will go back to the drawing board when I get tired of them. Oh, I almost forgot to mention one important thing: the other reason why I dismantle decks. See, I like thinking of new strategies as I go along, like if I get a new card and see some potential and wanna try it out. Unfortunately, a lot of the time, it just underperforms, is too slow or is not what I want out of the game, so it gets taken apart. The one regret I do have is never being able to make a viable Scion of the Ur-Dragon deck. That was the first commander I played with and I am a huge fan of dragons. They dominate when on the field, but are just too darn slow at times. So yeah, that's my one regret and the one deck I always go back to, thinking that THIS iteration will work, yet it never does.

Perfect deck tech for a perfect deck. Thanks

I solved this problem my adding umari as a companion as a restriction and only running creature spells. It offered me a cool build around.

I also played meren alot, I loved the deck and it was one of my favorites, but I didn't like my playgroups distaste me winning all the time so I decided to build a new deck which is my new favorite commander Old Stickfingers, I've always been a creature player and now I can run my meren in the 99 as a reanimation for my big creatures, even if she dies it's okay, and the old stickfingers is by far my favorite commander I've ever built

Got a nice story about how I hit my niche & built one of my favorite decks ever but I'm driving so I'll save this spot for when I park

I did the exact same and just yesterday played baba for the first time and it was so much fun, we play alot of Sheriff/Bang commander games and it really does well in that. I loved my meren deck but i always fellt like i was just tutoring for everything i need all the time so it got repetitive but now meren has a good place in baba :)

I took apart Kalamax and a few decks have filled its role. Most recently, it’s Magus Lucea Kane. That deck checks all the boxes for me. Temur, tribal, stompy, midrange, copy spells, combo, card draw, etc etc. but it doesn’t feel as linear as Kalamax did

I depowered my meren deck years ago in the same way, built it in many thematic ways, tokens, Big graveyard, only creatures. It's more fun for the table and for me! Baba looks sweet!

So I started playing Magic around Ravnica Allegiance. Not knowing any format or anything, I got starter decks and a bundle and started to build my own decks. One of which, was a Azorius fliers deck. It wasnt really well built, but in the pods with my friends it was amazing. So when I tried to transistion over to commander, I tried recreating that. I just had Lavinia, Azorius Renegade as a potential commander, so I buillt it around her. But soon I noticed that the fliers part wasn't coming to fruition and instead it was more around knowledge pool. I had to change the deck. This time I picked Isperia, Supreme Judge. I got the Azorius Guild kit and at the helm was a cool looking flying sphinx with a awesome ability? Yeah. So I picked her and tried to change the deck and instead make it more around forcing other people to attack me so I can draw a bunch of cards with cards like Taunt. This time, it wasnt working at all. There arent that many cards that force combat in azorius colors, especially when you try to force them to attack you. The fliers part was better, but it still wasnt the feeling I wanted. Again, I changed it. This time I had an idea. Instead of nontoken creatures, it would be better to work with tokens. But there wasnt a commander that supported this strategy. Until Commander Legends released and I used Prava of the Steel Legion and Siani, Eye of the Storm as my commanders. Also I added all the flying token generators I could get. The deck became better, but again it wasnt the thing I wanted it to be. Its still quite weak compared to the other decks of my friends. So after a while, I changed commander again which leads us to the present version of the deck. Elminster is the commander of the deck now. Again I needed a big overhaul, I put out a bunch of token generators and more instant/sorceries that support elminster as well as some huge spells to exile for faeries. I'm still upgrading this deck rn, but this feels like the deck I wanted. A planeswalker (which is best protected by fliers) who also does the most difficult and important job (creating tokens) in a way that is the best these colors can achieve. Finally I got this feeling back I had a few years ago. And here we have it. The history of me changing a deck over and over again, until I ended it with something that makes me happy. Instead of the history we heard in this video, this was more about finding the right commander for the strategy and colors I wanted that is also strong enough to compete with the other decks. Instead of weakening the deck, I tried making it stronger. And it was a success.

I have over 800 4 player pickup games of commander on MTGO and have to say that I really wish more people had the same attitude as you. It’s a 4 player game where the goal is to have fun but some people take winning way too seriously. I play powerful cards and do enjoy winning but if I don’t win in style then I don’t feel like I won, I feel like the super powerful staples won the game. Even powerful or “salty” cards can be fun in the right circumstances. I will never forget the game where I gifted an abyssal persecutor to the archenemy and as a result, the game ended in a 4 way tie 🤣

It seems like you've nailed the (in my opinion) ideal power level and variability of a deck here. My Anje, Maid of Dishonor blood tokens deck I accidentally did the same thing with. I wanted to build it as strong as I could, but it came out middling power, but with so many different ways of interacting with its own pieces and so many different ways of doing cool stuff. I had been intending to build Meren eventually because I like the stuff she does a lot, but you've sold me on building the Baba Lysaga I have buried in my collection somewhere instead.

My first EDH deck was Grimgrin when I did open one in a pack back in 2012... then it became Phenax for a while before I got included in a cedh group and converted it to Oona months before the pandemic. This year I created Gale/Scion for a edh tourney that has a baldur's gate commander restriction and fell in love with it. Right now, it is helmed by Rona but after the tourney for DMU i'll set it back to Gale/Scion.

Honestly this made me think about my own Maren deck and made me push it to CEDH and I loved doing that and now I'm gonna build this as my fun deck

Golgari is my favorite way to play Magic. I have GB Elves, GB Lifegain, and an Abzan aristocrats deck that leans heavy GB. But my favorite deck, is also Meren. (It used to be Gitrog Monster, but that deck along with many others was stolen) We had a friend in our group for a while, the only deck she had was Meren, and damn it was I always jealous of that deck. It did everything I wanted! But I felt it would be rude to make the same deck that was their one and only, so I only looked on Meren from afar, across the table. After the theft of my Commander collection, I had to rebuild. I was determined to have a Meren deck to express my love of Golgari, but I had to do something different to justify its existence to myself. So I went with a mostly Shaman tribal theme, with a few elementals and demons to help synergize with some of the best Shamans. (Bloodspeaker is an absolute allstar) You'd be surprised how many Shaman creatures play into Meren'a game plan, it's a lot of fun without being near as oppressive as a higher powered Meren. I can still win games if the grind game goes long, but I get to play my favorite girl now and it makes me so happy. I still encourage the table to bully the Meren player though, it's only tradition haha. I'm glad you found a way to enjoy the best playstyle in Magic again, maybe up next I should build Baby Lasagna myself :)

Best edh channel and content!

I went through this when I initially built my Toxrill deck. I managed to open one from a pack and just loved the idea of a giant slug turning all my opponents creatures into baby slugs but knew that his effect would be stifling to the table. I tried to build it with just cards that I had laying around and a strict $10 budget to keep the power level lower but even then I quickly realized that it just wasn't the type of game that I was after, and not having a super charged deck but still having Toxrill in the command zone definitely painted a target on me. After a bit of trying to make Toxrill work I realized that I just couldn't do it and keep it at the power level I wanted and still have fun so I decided to move him into the 99 of the deck as a slow board wipe with upside and move my girl Eloise, Nephalia Sleuth into the leading role and shift the deck to be wholly hers. I am so much happier with Eloise at the helm and the slug in the 99 and its so fun to just pull out Eloise and hear people say ""Ooohh, I've wanted to see an Eloise deck!" and get to show her off. With so many moving parts in the deck; sac outlets, expendable and recurrable creatures, aristocrat payoffs, and artifact synergies; I do sometimes just fail to find one of them but when I do manage to assemble all the pieces the deck really just hums and is so much fun to play. I do need to get more practice in with the deck though because there are a TON of triggers in that deck and I find I'm frequently missing some here and there.

Been a huuuge artifacts fan since my venture into the gathering and have had many artifact commander decks. From karn the silver combo engine, to jhoira the historic egg collector, and many inbetween like daretti the trash red panda. Lately I've come to terms that my many artifact decks have become samish, my collection was getting stretched too thinly, and I was looking at pooling them together. Enter Breya Ethyrium Shaper. 4 color, artifacts matter, and represented one of my favorite planes (or shard of) Esper.

This is great content Joey. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I personally find myself wanting to play cool and interesting decks more and more. Like, I wanna win, but I want to win in style.

I recently put together a Slimefoot and Squee deck. I've really been enjoying it so far.

Meren wasn't my first deck, but it was the one that made me fall in love with commander. She's the one deck I'll never take apart

Great video. I've taken apart most of my decks. Some didn't end up doing the thing, some were not appropriate for the power level I wanted to only at, and some I just didn't enjoy as much as I hoped. But there are a couple of decks I'm still excited to tinker with and play years later. My number 1 is Ghalta. I find that my opponents have a tough time arguing that attacking with big green doofuses is unfair or unexpected. I toned down the deck and got rid of cards like natural order and craterhoof, but wizards has printed so many great green mythics that the deck can still be strong and fun to play. I first decided to build the deck after watching Jon Suarez play it on commander vs and have loved it ever since.

for me that deck is Vannifar, but since i build it up to be more or less cedh. i dont get to play it as often anymore. but when i do, i always get exited about seeing how fast i can get my combo this time

I did something similar. I took apart my expensive deck that I had been working on for years in favor of one I (kinda) threw together. The new one was much more fun and aggressive than my old, slower stompy deck

I have a Prosper tome bound deck, and a Lathril blade of the elves deck, that are all optimized to the max. They were so good in fact that people gang up on me, and I either win, or fight an uphill battle. I ended up building a deck like Prosper, using Safana, Calimport Cutthroat, and passionate Archaeologist. It's game plan is go through the dungen and (to get the treasures) and use passionate Archaeologist to burn down the table. It's like Prosper, but with extra steps. But I really enjoy it. No one knows what to expect, the commander is slower, and unassuming, and its my own and I love it.

My meren deck was taken apart to build an araumi of the dead tide deck. My meren deck controlled the board well but struggled to win (too much value instead); araumi does exactly what I wanted meren to do, fill the graveyard, get massive etb value and drain my opponents.